Nearer to my residence, and of a kindred style of architecture, is the
church of ST. GERMAIN AUX AUXERROIS. The west front or porch is yet sound
and good. Nothing particularly strikes you on the entrance, but there are
some interesting specimens of rich old stained glass in the windows of the
transepts. The choir is completely and cruelly modernised. In the side
chapels are several good modern paintings; and over an altar of twisted
columns, round which ivy leaves, apparently composed of ivory, are
creeping, is a picture of three figures in the flames of purgatory. This
side-chapel is consecrated to the offering up of orisons "_for the souls in
purgatory_." It is gloomy and repulsive. Death's heads and thigh bones are
painted, in white colours, upon the stained wall; and in the midst of all
these fearful devices, I saw three young ladies intensely occupied in their
devotions at the railing facing the altar. Here again, I observed priests
examining young people in their catechism; and others in confessionals,
receiving the confessions of the young of both sexes, previous to their
taking the first sacrament on the approaching _Fête-Dieu_.

Contiguous to the Sorbonne church, there stands, raising its neatly
constructed dome aloft in air, the _Nouvelle Eglise Ste. Geneviève_, better
known by the name of the PANTHEON. The interior presents to my eye the most
beautiful and perfect specimen of Grecian architecture with which I am
acquainted. In the crypt are seen the tombs of French warriors; and upon
the pavement above, is a white marble statue of General Leclerc (brother in
law of Bonaparte,) who died in the expedition to St. Domingo. This, statue
is too full of conceit and affectation both in attitude and expression. The
interior of the building is about 370 English feet in length, by 270 in
width; but it is said that the foundation is too weak. From the gallery,
running along the bottom of the dome--the whole a miniature representation
of our St. Paul's--you have a sort of Panorama of Paris; but not, I think,